In other times I celebrated the Day of the Dead. I went to the old cemetery of Santiago in my city, Saltillo, to join the motley crowd that on November 2 visited that pantheon, that of the rich, and the one that was behind, called San Esteban, where the poor tombs of the poor. So there were few deaths in my life. That of my maternal grandmother, Mama Lata -Liberata was her name- of her, who in her last years told us: “I already want to die.”
That of Héctor Coronado, my schoolmate, who died when we were in the third year of primary school, victim of a disease whose fearful name put fear in our mothers: cerebrospinal meningitis. I always visited the grave of Professor César González, my sixth grade teacher, so generous and good that he seemed to have come out of the pages of our reading book, “Heart, a child’s diary”, by D’Amicis. He died in his youth in a car accident, and his students mourn him as we mourn a father. Then – my rarities – I went to the Rotonda de los Coahuilenses Distinguidos and put a flower on the forgotten tombs of Manuel Acuña and Don Carlos Pereyra, an illustrious historian in whose books I learned to love Spain.
Later, having completed that rite of the dead, I was going to share the uproar of the living. Outside the pantheon there were noisy cane sales – “not barañas,” said the vendors’ proclamation – and I always bought a cone of those tiny, round tejocotes, with bright red skin, pulp as sweet as the heart of a good woman and very hard seeds like the entrails of a bad woman, which also exist. In those years, distant in time, close in memory, there was no Halloween in my city. It was an exotic celebration that was only celebrated at Roberts College, founded by Protestant missionaries from the United States. Nor were there altars for the dead, a custom completely foreign to our traditions as people from the north, and that was imposed on us by centralism, which has imposed so many things on us.
On the night of that day, the day of the dead, old saltilleras legends were told in family gatherings, some tragic, like that of Delgadina, the young wife of an old butcher who, out of jealousy, murdered her and later hung her by the neck, from a hook in the back of the butcher shop, and there he kept her until the signs of death -of the dead woman- made her hideous crime visible. Other stories of that day were humorous, and were narrated between the laughter of the gentlemen and the veiled mirth of the ladies, who covered their mouths with their shawls so that the laughter caused by the story of the drunken man who was in a drunken state would not be seen. incrospido – will that word still be used? – entered the cemetery and fell into a newly dug grave, at the bottom of which he fell asleep. He woke up the next day, saw himself there and said: “Wait. Let’s see.
If I am alive, why am I in this tomb? And if I’m dead, why do I want to pee so much?” Everyone in my city, women and men, dressed in black on All Souls’ Day, which was also called the Day of the Dead, and in all the churches masses were celebrated for the blessed souls of purgatory. I don’t know if purgatory still exists – so many things have ceased to exist – or if it has been discontinued like limbo, which I understand has already disappeared. Tombs are also disappearing, due to the new custom of cremation. My great-grandchildren will perhaps see the cemeteries converted into shopping centers or apartment buildings. For my part, I did not celebrate the Day of the Dead yesterday. In Mexico, every day is now the day of the dead. THE END.
LOOKOUT
By Armando SOURCES AGUIRRE.
In Izamal, magical town, magical town of Yucatan, my friend Andrés told me the story of this man whom I will call lazy so as not to call him an even more vile term.
He spent the whole day lying in his hammock, without working or doing anything useful. One day his wife was going to prepare a stew and she asked him to go to the garden to dig up a carrot for her.
“I don’t get up from this hammock,” replied the great lazy bum.
So the wife went and pulled the carrot out of the ground herself. As she did so she noticed a metallic sheen at the bottom of the hole the carrot left. She dug around, and to her surprise found a pot full of gold coins there.
Happy, she reported the discovery to her husband and asked him to get up from the hammock and help her dig up the pot. He replied:
-If when I was poor I didn’t get up, now that I’m rich I’m less going to get up.
There are many assholes in this world, if I may use that vulgar term. Surely the subject of the story occupies the first place among them.
See you tomorrow!…
MANGANITES
By AFA.
“. Ebrard denounces the United States for its treatment of Cuba.”.
Very strange I find
that strange behavior.
It seems that the Chancellor
we are already contaminated.
#politics #worse